Jon Udell, now with Microsoft, is heard on an episode of Phil Windley's Technometria (available at IT Conversations):
"I want to be able to connect with, really, orders of magnitude more people than I ever have been able to do before. There are only a few entities in the world that have that kind of scale."

Udell took some heat for the decision but in his edifying conversation with the Technometria crew, it becomes more and more apparent that Jeff Sandquist -- Robert Scoble's ex-boss -- hit it out of the park when he welcomed Jon to Microsoft.

Udell is a soft spoken, profoundly driven technophile with humanist quality that is frequently missing in the ego driven world of US west coast tech. Maybe that's because he lives in New Hampshire and will remain there during his stint at Microsoft, vowing to visit Redmond on a non-periodic basis. Where Scoble brought a wow, "that's neat" factor as an evangelist for the software monster, Udell vows to become the communicative bridge builder. Microsoft needs this kind of focused and illuminating interchange with technology professionals; following on the heels of an extended and costly Vista development period as well as a demonstrably ludicrous dud with the first generation Zune.

Jon, we're listening -- and watching your tremendous screencasts. You are also, most notably, our first enrollee into the Community of Current Thought here at Current Thinking.